Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages: Synchronic and Diachronic ...

in the production of the units diminishes. In short, the more units that
occupy anthropophonic space, the less freedom each unit has to vary.
This model provides at least a partial account of the apparent distribution
of vowels in the world’s languages. However, it is difficult to apply such
a principle to a stop system. For one thing, the parameters of stop systems
are more discrete in nature than those of vowel systems—there is
no continuum between a bilabial and a dental stop, for example. Therefore,
creating a measure of phonetic distance between stops is more difficult
than for vowels. Also, as an effect of the size principle (Lindblom &
Maddieson 1988), the addition of a manner or a place distinction in a
stop system usually results in the addition to the system of a series of
new units, rather than just one.
Another factor that delimits phonetic variation is physiology. Speakers
are bound to vary with regard to the size and shape of the larynx,
pharynx and the oral and nasal cavities, tongue shape, denture, the innervation
(and enervation) of muscles, as well as the control of all these
structure at higher levels in the nervous system. These speaker-dependent
differences have a substantial effect not only on the acoustic properties
of the vocal tract, but also on the articulatory strategies employed by
speakers. The latter is evident, for example, in the differences between
the speech of males and females, which can be attributed to differences
in the size of the articulators (Simpson 2001, Traunmüller 2001).
With regard to preaspiration, differences in vocal fold size and physiology
may play a role. Observations in the preaspiration literature are
indicative of a sex/gender, as well as an age effect with regard to preaspiration
production: Iversen (1913) remarked that preaspiration in the Norwegian
Senja dialect was most noticeable in the speech of children; Fant
et al. (1991) noted that female speakers of CSw tend to preaspirate more
than do male speakers; Foulkes et al. (1999) found, for Tyneside English,
that women and children tend to preaspirate, but that adult males do not;
and Stölten (2002) found that women’s preaspirations are longer than
men’s in Arjeplog Swedish.
Hanson (1997) and Hanson & Chuang (1999) investigated the acoustic
voice source characteristics of 21 male and 22 female speakers of
American English. They found that, in general, females displayed a
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